Rousseau on refined Epicureanism and the problem of modern liberty
| Published date | 01 October 2018 |
| Date | 01 October 2018 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1474885118788963 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
EJPT
Article
Rousseau on refined
Epicureanism and the
problem of modern liberty
Jared Holley
European University Institute, Italy
Abstract
This article argues that in order to understand the form of modern political free-
dom envisioned by Rousseau, we have to understand his theory of taste as refined
Epicureanism. Rousseau saw the division of labour and corrupt taste as the greatest
threats to modern freedom. He identified their cause in the spread of vulgar
Epicureanism – the frenzied pursuit of money, vanity and sexual gratification. In its
place, he advocated what he called ‘the Epicureanism of reason’, or refined
Epicureanism. Materially grounded on an equitable proportion of needs and faculties,
this was a hedonist theory of self-command designed to cultivate the temperate enjoy-
ment of sensual pleasure. I argue that Rousseau hoped that a shift from vulgar to refined
Epicureanism would secure political freedom in modernity by grounding the politics of
the general will in an economics of balanced growth and a reinvigorated appreciation of
natural beauty. This perspective provides a new way of both clarifying the role of eco-
nomic justice and aesthetic judgment in Rousseau’s republican state theory, and of
assessing the consistency of his moral and political thought.
Keywords
Aesthetics, Epicureanism, inequality, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, judgment, popular
sovereignty
Jean-Jacques Rousseau famously warned his audience that the first chapter of the
third book of the Social Contract had to be approached with care. Ever since,
attentive readers have recognized that his definition of government, the distinction
between it and the sovereign and the prohibition on representation that follows are
fundamental to his political theory (Rousseau, 1997b: 113–116; Tuck, 2016: 1–5,
125–145). But if such readers often note that these features are consistent with
European Journal of Political Theory
2018, Vol. 17(4) 411–431
!The Author(s) 2018
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/1474885118788963
journals.sagepub.com/home/ept
Corresponding author:
Jared Holley, Max Weber Programme, European University Institute, Badia Fiesolana, Via dei Roccettini 9, I-
50014 San Domenico di Fiesole (FI), Italy.
Email: jared.holley@eui.eu
Rousseau’s theory of the general will, the most astute among them also appreciate
that they stem from his consideration of the pre-eminently practical contrasts
between ancient and modern politics. As he explained in several places, modern
states differ from the Greek polis and the Roman republic in two crucial ways. The
first is economic: moderns are more concerned with private interest than freedom,
partly because of the greater effort required to meet individual survival needs in
severe northern climates, and partly because of their moral condemnation of slav-
ery. The second is aesthetic: moderns speak muted and indistinct languages, incap-
able of eloquence and lacking the persuasive power to stir patriotic affection for the
common good. The problem Rousseau set himself in his political theory, then, is
how to preserve liberty under these uniquely modern conditions: ‘no longer having
the same advantages’, he asks, ‘how are we to preserve the same rights’ (Rousseau,
1997b: 115; Rousseau, 2001: 292–293)?
One answer that Rousseau gave to this problem of modern liberty was to invert
ancient priorities, such that the ‘public good’ would coincide with the ‘private
good’ rather than the private with an antecedently-given public. This article eluci-
dates how he thought such an inversion might be accomplished. Its point of depart-
ure is Istvan Hont’s (2015: 29–31, 37, 91) identification of Rousseau as a kind of
refined Epicurean thinker. Expanding on this observation, I argue that reconstruct-
ing Rousseau’s own notion of refined Epicureanism allows us to appreciate more
fully his diagnosis of and proposed solution to the problem of modern liberty,
precisely because it clarifies the relationship between economics and aesthetics in
his political theory. I also suggest that this historical reconstruction opens up
something of a middle way between the dominant interpretations of Rousseau in
contemporary political theory. While some theorists hold that Rousseau’s models
of political virtue and individual or domestic flourishing are radically and inten-
tionally incompatible (Shklar, 1969; Strauss, 1947), recent thinkers tend to claim
that the apparent opposition between men and citizens is dialectically overcome by
a theory of ‘social autonomy’ grounded in a transcendent ideal of ‘rational agency’
(Cohen, 1986; Neuhouser, 2008). As we will see, refined Epicureanism, on the
one hand, provides a consistent ideal uniting Rousseau’s accounts of individual,
domestic and political flourishing; but on the other, its core premise of ‘temperate
sensuality’ renders it a more pragmatic or realistic ideal than rational agency.
Before making these arguments, I should begin by establishing the contours of
Rousseau’s concept of refined Epicureanism, and the distinction between it and
vulgar Epicureanism.
Epicureanism is of course a variety of hedonism, a philosophy of pleasure.
For Rousseau, refined Epicureans drew a distinction between the pleasures of
‘nature’ they pursued, and the pleasures of ‘fashion’ or ‘vanity’ pursued by
vulgar Epicureans (Rousseau, 1997c: 15–19). This distinction forms the theoretical
or rational core of refined Epicureanism. But it is importantly grounded in and
supported by a sentimental core, an affective disposition that Rousseau called
‘temperate sensuality’ (Rousseau, 1997c: 451, 541). Temperance for Rousseau is
habitual moderation of natural pleasures and, thus, the virtue required in condi-
tions of prosperity and luxury (Rousseau, 1990: 114; Rousseau, 1997a: 313–314).
412 European Journal of Political Theory 17(4)
To continue reading
Request your trial